


Queen of Spades

by firechant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/M, Gen, M/M, more to come - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firechant/pseuds/firechant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in Midnight City goes on.  Snowman and Spades Slick continue to hate each other, the Midnight Crew and the Felt get in each other's hair, and Problem Sleuth learns a lot about carapacians that he never knew.  Soon, however, old phantoms from Sgrub begin to emerge from memory into the present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. At the end of the game, the player with the lowest score wins.

Snowman scowled. For the fifth time that week, she found herself alone in a bedroom with Spades Slick. Honestly, it wasn’t like she needed to see him this often, and the fact that she couldn’t seem to help herself just angered her further. Slick, for the fifth time this week, squirmed underneath her as she brought her claws up to the top of his face, framing his forehead, three claws on each side.

She usually broke the skin when doing this – the six vertical scars on his face were open just as often as they were closed – but today she felt like messing with him a little more than usual. She pulled her claws down his face, hard enough to scratch painfully, but not hard enough to draw blood, and his reaction was priceless. He moaned and leaned into her hands, like he was trying to get her to cut him.

Which, of course, he was. But she’d never expected him to display it so openly to her.

“Why, Slick,” she said in mock surprise. “It seems almost as if you just want me to hurt you.”

“Nah,” he replied, but still panting a little, “if there’s a reason I’m doing this it’s because I get to stab you. Again and again, night after night, and still you keep coming back.”

Right on cue, she felt a knife slice up her left side. It wasn’t a deep wound, but it left a stinging line of blue snaking up her body. She’d thought she had known where all his cards were. Sneaky bastard must have spent the past five minutes trying to grab that card from its hiding place under the mattress.

She winced for his benefit, then deftly grabbed his arm and twisted it around. She might have heard something crack when she pulled the knife from his hand, but disregarded the thought. “Now,” she said, twirling the knife in her right hand, “are you going to behave, or do I have to restrain you?”

“Fuck you,” he said, and at that moment, he twisted. Snowman wasn’t quite prepared, and the pair of them fell off the bed in a heap, rolling over each other. The knife tumbled to the floor at some point, and they stayed in stalemate for a moment there, rolling across the floor. Then, of course, Slick pulled her head forward and kissed her, the world still tumbling around them. The kiss was usual, by their standards. Slick deliberately bit through her lower lip, so Snowman retaliated by biting through his upper. They continued until they had rolled to the complete other side of the room, by which time both their mouths were ringed in both red and blue. By sheer luck, Slick was on top when they hit the wall.

“Ha,” he sneered, and pulled a card from a jacket pocket. How many of the damned things did he have? He made more cuts, one across her shoulders and chest as she tried to raise her arms to defend herself, and one down her leg as he tried to keep the blade out of her reach.

Snowman, knowing it would infuriate him, punched him square in his ruined eye. Sure enough, he yelled in rage, and the momentary distraction gave Snowman enough time to disarm him again. She slammed his head up and into the wall next to them, then hauled him by his lapels back to the bed.

She had come prepared this time. She pulled a set of handcuffs from the drawer in the bedside table. She cuffed one side to Slick’s wrist while he was still dazed and quickly attached the other end to the headboard. Slick, of course, began struggling immediately, but to no avail.

“You fucking bitch,” he told her.

“Really, Slick, after all our time together I’m surprised you don’t have anything more creative than that.”

“Oh, that’s right, you must just be thinking about me all the time. I’m sure you’ve thought of tons of amazing nicknames –”

“But, you see, I don’t have to come up with nicknames for you. I already know the name that gets under your skin the most.” She smiled at the knife as she said it, then brought it up to his arm, starting at the wrist handcuffed to the headboard. She sat on his chest, effectively immobilizing him, then leaned into his ear and whispered, “Jack Noir”.

Slick screamed in combined rage and pain as Snowman brought the knife in a clean line down his arm. She was cutting deeper than he had, and she didn’t stop until she reached his shoulder.

“Bitch,” he spat, so she bit him too, where the stump of his shoulder met his neck. She sat back up, blood dripping from her mouth. “But those were great days, weren’t they?” she asked. “Just sitting back and ruling a kingdom in peace. I even had an Archagent who would handle all the tedious paperwork. He just needed a little persuasion sometimes.”

Slick was growling, but she went on. “It’s sort of funny, actually. You really had more power, at least on the planet, than the Black King ever did. But you never abused it. Except for the once.”

Fucking bitch. Of course he didn’t abuse it. She always found out about it and stopped him. Usually with some kind of sharp implement. His proudest moment was when he had managed to get her exiled. She couldn’t stop him then.

“But you couldn’t stop me then,” he began to follow this train of thought aloud. “The one time it really mattered to you, you couldn’t even stop me. And you haven’t been able to since!”

She looked down at him with amusement, but there was some other emotion on her usually inscrutable face that Slick couldn’t quite place. “You seem pretty stopped right now,” she said.

“Yeah, but that’s just, mmf!” his voice cut off as she forced the tail of the sheet across his mouth and tied it behind his head.

“Like I said,” she said, real annoyance in her voice for the first time tonight, “sometimes it seems like you’re just begging me to hurt you.”

His eyes – both of them, even though one was covered in stitches – narrowed at her, and she continued. “So that’s why I’ll have to remind you that I’m hurting you on my terms, not yours.”

Then she really got into playing with the knife. She pulled it sharply through his skin, though never deep enough to cause lasting internal injury. She bit through his jacket, shirt, and pants when necessary, but this entire thing was just searching – quietly but insistently searching for the place she would cause real damage tonight.

Finally she brought it up to the right side of his face, next to the scarred eye. She leaned right into his ear and whispered, “Maybe I should take this ear from you as well, leave you twice as blind as you already are on this side.” His struggles began anew, but he couldn’t really get any purchase from this angle, and Snowman was holding down his torso. “No...I wouldn’t want you to be completely useless. No, I have a better idea.” She pulled up what remained of his shirt, revealing numerous scars, memories from previous encounters. She plunged the knife deep into his side, and the responding muffled profanities were music to her ears.

“No, instead I’ll leave you here for this city’s bumbling detective to find. You and he can work out what to do with you.”

The muffled profanities were growing louder; she noticed that Slick was rather successfully chewing through the sheets she had gagged him with. Best to leave now.

She picked herself up with grace and lit a cigarette, placed neatly in the holder she always carried. She strode toward the door, pausing only to pick up her hat and give Slick a smile, which amusedly seemed to set off another round of cursing. She could have phased out, but she found that using that ability seemed to keep its effect on people only when she used it sparingly. So she just walked out the door, closed it behind her, and dropped the key to the handcuffs on the floor. She knew the figure was there without having to turn around, so she just strode on, saying as she left, “make sure you take care of him properly. I wouldn’t want to have to hurt you, good Sleuth.”


	2. After looking at his or her hand, each player chooses three cards and passes them face down to another player.

It took at least five minutes for Problem Sleuth to collect himself enough to pick up the key and go in. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find – probably Spades Slick dead in a pool of his own blood. For a while he had heard Slick yelling something about a huge bitch, but that had stopped minutes ago, and the amount of screaming earlier had led Sleuth to believe that Snowman had really killed Slick.

But when he finally got down to it, positioned his hat in a more hard-boiled manner, and ventured into the room, what he saw was Spades Slick holding a thin knife in his mouth, trying without success to pick the lock on the cuffs holding his one arm to the headboard. He was lying on an extremely bloody set of torn sheets and a mattress, and bloody tatters of the corner of the sheet lay around Slick’s face.

“Mother FUCK!” Slick exclaimed through his teeth as he caught sight of Problem Sleuth. He gingerly set the knife down and demanded, “And what exactly do YOU want now, hm?”

Wordlessly, Sleuth held up the key to the handcuffs.

“That bitch. That fucking bitch. I swear, the next time I see her I’m-”

“You do realize you’re bleeding out, right?” Sleuth said.

Slick glanced down at the wound at his side. “Right, that. Well, I’m sure the bitch told you not to let me die or some shit like that. Well, I’ll tell you what. You give me that key, I’ll take care of myself, and I’ll even agree not to kill you until I’m healed.”

“I’d have to be some kind of moron to go along with that.”

Slick made a face like yeah, that’s sort of what he was getting at.

“Oh, ha ha,” Sleuth told him. “How about I patch you up so the Felt doesn’t have to hear about your…ah…injuries, I give you the key and we go our separate ways?”

Slick’s face sort of scrunched up as he considered it, then he said, “Nope, I like our previous arrangement better.”

“How about I go tell the Felt where you are right now? Not Snowman, but I can probably find Quarters.”

“Fuck! Fine, there’s gauze in that drawer,” Slick yelled.

Problem Sleuth gingerly set the key to the cuffs out of Slick’s reach, then opened the appropriate drawer. Sure enough, there was a large container of gauze, tape, and a bottle of antiseptic. Slick eyed the bottle with trepidation.

“Stuff stings like a bitch,” he explained when Sleuth fixed him with a puzzling look.

“Slick, I…there’s a lot of blood here. Should I call a doctor?”

“What? What kind of pussy do you take me for? She never cut deeper than the first layer of carapace, except for there, and that’s a muscle wound,” he nodded at the knife still stuck in his side.

Sleuth nodded dubiously. “Roll to your left side,” he told Slick.

Slick stuck his tongue out at him, but rolled so that the handle of the knife was pointed up toward the ceiling. Problem Sleuth then proceeded to yank the knife out of Slick’s side without further warning.

At Slick’s yell of “motherfucker!” Sleuth folded up a bit of gauze and pressed down until he felt confident that Slick wouldn’t die of blood loss from that wound alone.

In the end, they went through the entire container of gauze, and Sleuth had to begin ripping strips from the bedsheets. They were already ruined, after all. Considering what Sleuth had heard about the man before him, Slick remained oddly silent throughout the entire thing. Sleuth had been expecting vehement cursing, not to mention threats. But Slick just sat through it all, eye focused firmly on the corner of the wall past Problem Sleuth’s shoulder.

Finally, Problem Sleuth grabbed the key on the end table. “So, what, I give you this key and we go our merry ways?”

“What? Yeah, we had an agreement, didn’t we?”

Problem Sleuth’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t be thinking of stabbing me as I left or anything, would you? Should I just leave this key down here where you’ll get to it in an hour or so?”

“What? I wouldn’t kill you just for this, you’re not worth it. Just give me the key, you fucker. ‘Sides, this’ll turn out way worse for you if you don’t give me that key now.”

Back to the Spades Slick that Sleuth was more familiar with. “Fine,” he said, and dropped the key into Slick’s open hand. Slick’s wrist was entirely defter than Sleuth would have thought, curling around the bar of the headboard to reach the keyhole, and the cuffs popped open in a matter of seconds.

Problem Sleuth turned and walked for the door, hoping he hadn’t just made a very stupid mistake. The next thing he knew, his face was on the ground, and Slick was standing on top of him. The horse hitcher he always seemed to have near pinned him to the ground, straight between the shoulder blades.

“That,” Slick told him, “was a very stupid mistake. Honestly, how do you even live in this city with a wit like that? I would have thought you would have gotten yourself killed years ago. What’s your deal?”

Problem Sleuth mumbled something, but Slick just muttered that he didn’t even want to hear the answer to that one.

“What’s your name, anyway?” Slick asked. Problem Sleuth told him.

“Problem Sleuth?!” Slick’s voice actually cracked when Sleuth told him. He fell off of Sleuth as he was stricken with fits of outrageous laughter. Sleuth could actually see several of the gauze wrappings soak completely red as Slick just laughed and laughed.

“Holy shit, now I gotta let you go. I have to see how long you last in the city, see? I mean seriously, how are you still here? What the fuck.” He pulled Sleuth up and pushed him toward the door. “Incidentally, if I find out that the Felt heard about you patching me up, you’d better hope I find you dead.”

Sleuth gulped, nodded, and ran out the door before Slick changed his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting in my computer for a loooong time. I figure it may as well live on the internet.


	3. All players must pass their own cards before looking at the cards received from an opponent.

Sleuth needed some information, and he needed it fast. He had no idea when Slick would snap and decide to come after him, and so he needed to find out everything about him. And soon.

He had overheard some of Snowman and Slick’s conversation, and it seemed like as good as any a place to start. Something about a nickname (what Sleuth wouldn’t pay to learn that name), an Archagent, and a Black King. He could only guess these originated before Midnight City was built. If the rumors were true, Slick had built the place from the ground up, and he’d never gone by either of those titles in the city.

Perhaps to start with the Dersites. They seemed like they would know more about a Black King or something. Now there was another puzzle – Prospitians and Dersites. Everyone knew about the two types of carapicians to grace Midnight City. The far more numerous black-carapaced Dersites and the white-carapaced Prospitians. Where did those names even come from? No one mentioned anywhere called Derse or Prospit. Sleuth had been around for so many sweeps – surely he’d have heard something?

No matter, it was a question for another time. Problem Sleuth decided to begin his investigation in the Further Ring, a somewhat sleazy Dersite bar. He had a friend who could almost always be found there. It seemed appropriate to call him his friend, even though he had never told Sleuth his name.

He got the usual glares when he went in – nobody really took kindly to a Prospitian here – but shrugged them off and went to his usual seat in the back to wait. Sure enough, several minutes later, a short figure approached him and slid into the seat next to him. He was about average height for a Dersite – shorter than Sleuth, but taller than Ace Dick. The pale yellow suit he wore was snappy as ever, clashing weirdly with the environment in the bar.

“Problem Sleuth. Seems like every time I see you in here you want to talk to me. So what’s up?”

“Jeez, I can’t just drop by to say hi?” Problem Sleuth winced, “though you’re right this time. I need a little help in an investigation.”

“I’m at your service, detective.”

“Well,” Problem Sleuth wasn’t really sure how to begin. “what do you know about one called the Black King?”

His friend’s face went carefully blank. Interesting. “Now what has you asking a question like that? That’s a name I hadn’t ever expected to hear around here.”

“Then you know about him? What about the Archagent?”

“Keep your voice down!” the Dersite hissed. He looked apprehensively around the bar, but apparently no one was paying any attention to their conversation. He continued at a much quieter volume. “Sleuth, you know full well the old Archagent doesn’t permit us to talk about life before exile.”

Sleuth blinked. “Um…yes?”

“Look, just between us? I’m disgusted by what ‘Slick’ has made here. And honestly, I’m still loyal to the rightful King and Queen. But I’m resigned to life in this city, and I’m not terribly eager to open up old wounds. So what do you need that you don’t already know? Why do you need to know about the inner workings of Derse?”

Sleuth had absolutely no idea what the man was talking about. So best to start at the beginning. “We aren’t allowed to talk about it?” he said, hoping to get his friend to elaborate.

The Dersite seemed to misinterpret his question as a chastising statement of fact. “Yes, yes, I know,” he said impatiently, shaking his head. “But you brought it up! Ugh, this is always what I hated about Prospit - they wanted to hold everyone to this great standard but be permitted to ignore it themselves.”

“Okay, look. There’s no point in me pretending this isn’t true because it’ll become obvious pretty soon. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

The carapacian fixed Sleuth with a patronizing glare. “What, did the Prospies wipe all their memories before they came down? Seriously, Sleuth, help me out here. What’s with the act?”

“It’s not an act. I’ve never heard of Derse, except that it sort of sounds like ‘Dersite’, and I have no idea what King or Queen you mentioned. Can you tell me from the beginning?”

The black carapacian looked through narrowed eyes at Sleuth, as if trying to determine if he was telling the truth. Then, via some logic that Sleuth couldn’t fathom, asked, “Were you born in Midnight City?”

“Yeah, about fifteen sweeps ago, why?”

Sleuth’s friend’s face fell. “Oh. Oh, oh, dear, oh no, Sleuth. And the only reason you would be asking me about all this is if you’ve gotten into some kind of trouble.”

Problem Sleuth scowled. “What’s your point?”

“Sleuth, I need you to tell me why you need this information.”

Sleuth thought about making up some excuse, but then realized he didn’t know nearly enough about anything his friend was talking about to make up anything convincing. So he went with the truth. “I…may have run into Spades Slick compromised by Snowman. And he might have let me live, but we both know he’s pretty unstable and could snap at any minute and change his mind. But Snowman was taunting him with something about an Archagent and a King, and I figure the more I know the better chance I have at convincing Slick not to kill me.”

Sleuth’s friend nodded. “That…makes a great deal of sense. Alright, look. Back on Derse, no wait, you don’t remember. Okay. Before Midnight City, when we still lived on Derse, life was simple. This was about…a hundred sweeps ago by time on this side? Something like that. Anyway, we Dersites had a job: defeat the Prospitians on the Battlefield. The Black King and Queen, along with their Agents, worked to do this. But Archagent Jack Noir? He hated his job. He didn’t give a flying fuck about Derse or what we stood for. And he’d look for any way possible to stick it to the Queen. I don’t know why she kept him around.”

He shook his head. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Anyway, Jack cut a deal with the enemy. Helped them gain the strength to defeat us. He managed to exile the Black Queen. I don’t know what happened to her after that, I really hope she survived long enough to make it to the City. That was the beginning of the end for us. Not long after, the Black King was slain in battle, and we were defeated. Jack must have been feeling really smug about himself. He probably would have stolen the Ring and gone off on some kind of murderous rampage if he could have. But that’s beside the point.”

The Dersite smiled a wicked smile. “The Queen got him back, even from exile. Before she left, she somehow set it up so that Jack would be exiled too. He got shipped down to this miserable planet along with the traitorous Agents that supported him – there were three others. Led by Jack, they began to build. They built the Midnight City, and all the exiles began to flock here. As the defeated, practically the entire population of Derse is here. A few Prospies were sent down here before the war ended, but afterward they were allowed to keep their stupid Skaia-grubbing planet. And, as the population of the City grew, those four traitor Agents set themselves up as the Midnight Crew, feeding off of everyone here.”

Sleuth frowned. “But, everyone knows Spades Slick built Midnight City. If it were actually Jack Noir…”

The Dersite smiled without any happiness in it. “You guessed it, they’re the same person. You managed to piss off the one biggest traitorous scumbag in the entire city. I don’t think he even knows the meaning of loyalty, or honesty, or goddamn decency. He named himself after Bilious fucking Slick of all things, and I’m pretty sure it’s just to insult Derse’s memory. But seriously, we should talk about your specific situation. What exactly did you see him doing?”

Sleuth flinched. “Let’s just say he was getting torn up pretty bad by Snowman.”

The Dersite looked ponderous. “Snowman…he’s one of the Felt, right?”

Sleuth slapped his forehead. “Come on, man, she’s pretty much the face of the Felt. Even though she’s not green. How do you not know that?”

He raised his arms in his defense. “Look, my part of the city is Crew territory. We don’t really have much to do with the Felt here. But wait, Snowman’s a woman? Is she Dersite?”

“I cannot believe I’m having this conversation. What would happen if you walked into the wrong part of town?”

“Just answer, please.”

“Yep, the only black-carapaced one of the lot of them, and the only woman to boot. Real tall, too. Seriously, you do not want to run into this dame.”

Sleuth’s friend looked like he was having a revelation. “Maybe the Black Queen made it to the city after all.”

“Wait, she’s…you think she’s the Black Queen from your story?”

“From history, you mean? It sure sounds like it. Maybe I’ll have to do some sightseeing. See if I can’t catch a glimpse of her.”

“Oh my god, and here I thought I had a death wish."

“Anyway, what are you going to do about your Slick problem?”

“Well, now that I know about all this Black Queen nonsense I’m sure I can find a way to convince him to let me live if he comes calling again.”

“Whatever, it’s your carapace.”

“Alright then, until next time. Feel like leaving me with a name this time?”

The Dersite grinned a smile full of teeth. “Maybe next time.”

“Alright, I can live with that. I’ll see you again. If Snowman doesn’t rip your head off.”

The Dersite’s smile widened. “Oh, you will, PS. You will.”


	4. The player holding the 2 of clubs after the pass plays that card to start the first trick.

Snowman had left town.

At first Slick didn’t notice that anything was different. But nearly a week rolled by without any sight of Snowman, no hint of Felt activity. At first it was nice to have their plans succeed without a hitch. It was just the four of the Crew, no complications, reminiscent of the early days of Midnight City, before the Felt arrived.

Then it just started getting creepy. The entire Midnight Crew was wound extremely tightly, like they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Spades Slick’s demeanor deteriorated almost by the hour. The other three of the Midnight Crew hadn’t thought it was possible, but he was even louder and more eager to pick a fight than the others had ever seen him.

“Droog!” he burst into the hideout yelling. “Tell me you have something, you had better fucking have something.” Droog had offered to investigate the Felt’s strange disappearance. Of course the yelling attracted Hearts Boxcars and Clubs Deuce as well.

“Maybe,” Droog said, unfazed by Slick’s outburst. “Don’t get your hopes up, but I might have found Snowman.”

“Well? It’s already been five days, I would hope you would have found something. Fuck!”

Droog handed him a slip of paper with an address on it. “It’s a cheap hotel on the outskirts of town.”

“Fuck, well it’s not like I can just go and see her. One of you has to do it.”

“Um, don’t you think that might not work out very well, Spades?” Deuce interjected.

Before Slick could get cranky again, Droog held up his hands for silence. “If you want, I can give you the name of the contact who found this information for me. Maybe you can find out more about the situation, Spades.”

“Fine. Who is it?”

“A detective by the rather obvious name of Problem Sleuth.”

“Wait, what hell the fuck? That guy?”

“He’s a bit bumbling and frivolous at times but he does seem to have a knack for gathering information.”

“Well, shit, that’s no problem then. Give me that paper.”

-

Snowman had an itch.

It wasn’t physical, but it was starting to consume her awareness the same way normal itches do. She felt her fingers twitching toward the whip she carried, almost hoping that someone would get in her way so that she could just lash out at something.

She ended up just digging her claws into her palms, hard enough to draw blood. The sensation helped a little, but mostly it just pissed her off more.

Much as she hated to admit it, she sort of missed Spades Slick. He was like a punching bag she had grown particularly fond of.

She continued down the path, scowling at every Prospitian and Dersite that scurried away from her glare.

-

And so it was that Spades Slick found himself in a different part of town than usual. This place was too nice to be “the bad part of town” but it wasn’t nice enough that people like Slick would take an interest in it. It seemed to be inhabited by mostly Prospitians, and everyone on the street gave Slick an extremely wide berth. Finally he entered the correct door, went down the hallway, and banged loudly on the door marked with a “P.S.”

A few footsteps later, the door opened. Problem Sleuth’s eyes widened and he tried to shut the door immediately, but the horse hitcher blocked the door from closing and Slick pushed his way in soon after.

Problem Sleuth gulped, visibly pulled himself together, and asked with only a slight waver in his voice, “What can I do for you, Mr. Slick?”

Slick pushed Problem Sleuth back into the wall, then gave an ironic smile. “I hear you’ve come across a bit of valuable information, Problem Sleuth.”

“Um, I –”

“Snowman, you moron, you found her, didn’t you?”

Sleuth gathered his dignity and stood his ground. “Yes, I found her. I already gave the information to your associate, what of it?”

“And you based this information off of what, a rumor?”

“A variety of sources. Why?”

Slick smiled. “Have you actually seen her?”

“No, why- ”

“Well, you see, I don’t think you’re much of a sleuth if you’ll accept evidence on hearsay. Don’t you think you should check it out personally?”

“Are you trying to tell me to go see Snowman?”

“I knew that sleuthey intellect would get you somewhere eventually. Now, see, that’s the kind of mind we need cleaning up the streets of this city. A real –”

“Do you think I have a death wish?”

Slick frowned and picked up the horse hitcher. “Well, see, it seems to me that your life expectancy chances are better if you take the job.”

Problem Sleuth mentally berated himself for walking into that one. “And why exactly do you want me to do this? I’m trying to figure it out here, Slick, come on.”

“Look, just find her, and tell her I have a message for her. And then maybe she’ll be able to convince me not to kill you afterward.”

“Slick, I really don’t see why you don’t just go talk to her yourself if you’re so eager to get her this message.”

Spades hefted the horse hitcher. “Oh, I’m sorry, I think you missed the part where it’s my business. Are you really eager to rub your nose in my business? I’m sure I can find someone else to talk to her.”

“Ugh, fine, I’ll do it. Now will you leave?”

“Yes.”

Slick started for the door. Then he whirled around and chucked a knife at Problem Sleuth’s general torso region. Sleuth managed to move so that it glanced past his upper arm, leaving a rip in his suit’s arm and a small swath of blood. The knife twirled the last couple meters and landed on Problem Sleuth’s desk. It was the same knife that he had pulled from Slick’s side less than a week ago.

“What the hell was that for?” Problem Sleuth demanded angrily, one hand in his pocket clenched around what seemed to be a key ring.

“So that Snowman knows you’re actually from me,” Slick declared with a dark grin, and walked through the door.


	5. Each player must follow suit if possible.

Lying in bed, Snowman pondered her recent course of actions. Maybe disappearing for a while hadn’t been the best idea. She had hoped to give herself a break from all this Spades Slick nonsense, but she just couldn’t let it go. Perhaps she would return tomorrow. Yes, the surprise of her return would surely aid her in their next encounter. She felt better already.

The sound of a faint rustle drifted over to her from near the door. She frowned. Had she imagined it? No, there it was again. Surely Slick couldn’t have been stupid enough to follow her? She found herself hoping he had, then banished the thought. He was reckless but he wasn’t stupid.

Quietly, she reached for the cigarette holder sitting on the bedside table. She phased out and rematerialized directly in front her intruder. She pushed his back up against the wall and pressed the lance horizontally across his neck, choking him.

“You have five seconds to explain what you’re doing in my room.”

“I- I- Slick sent me.” The Prospitian intruder held his arms up in surrender. There was a clacking sound as something dropped from his hand to the floor. Snowman glanced down at it. _One of Slick’s knives?_ Snowman kicked it into the room, out of the intruder’s reach, then pushed the carapacian into the greenish moonlight that shone through the window.

“Problem Sleuth?” she asked in disbelief as his face was illuminated. She loosened her grip on his neck, but she didn’t move the lance away. “What are you- wait, Slick sent you? What the fuck does he want?”

“Hell if I know, he wanted me to tell you he wanted to tell you something. Or something like that.”

She sighed. Her itch was back with a vengeance. “I don’t suppose you happened to bring him with you, did you?”

“What? No, he wouldn’t come. Trust me, I asked.”

“That’s a shame. He’d be able to withstand what I’m about to do a lot better than you will.”

She flung him into the corner and slowly advanced on him, pausing only to collect her whip and the knife she had kicked aside. Problem Sleuth’s eyes grew wide as he saw Snowman brandishing the whip. Snowman saw him fumbling in his pocket – did he have a weapon? With a snarl, she threw Slick’s knife at him and watched the knife sink through the fabric of Sleuth’s jacket pocket and into his forearm, pinning his hand inside his pocket. Something was not right about this encounter. It tugged at her mind, leaving her unable to enjoy the bloodshed as she usually would. Frowning, she drew her whip and attacked with a vengeance.

The first lash of Snowman’s whip caused Problem Sleuth to make an unsatisfying yelp and crumple into a heap, cradling his knife wound. The second lash caused another yell, but somehow only made Snowman feel worse. After a third lash, Snowman threw her hands up in frustration. It wasn’t enough! This wasn’t helping!

She angrily put her hat on and wondered where Spades Slick was. If he was in a bad mood, he would be at the Eclipse, a bar not half a block from the Midnight Crew’s hideout.

With a parting glance at Problem Sleuth, she phased out and reappeared in the back of the Eclipse.

The Eclipse was a classy place, despite the dancers distributed throughout the bar. In the dim red light, Snowman could make out the outlines of a few dozen carapacians, a fairly even split between Prospit and Derse. Her eyes narrowed as she peered through the crowd for any sign of Spades Slick. One Prospitian girl happened to get in the way of her stare and drew back immediately, bending over in a combination of a bow and a kneel. Snowman knew the girl hoped she hadn’t seen her. She needn’t worry. Snowman was after different prey tonight.

There! To her right in one of the darkest corners of the Eclipse sat Spades Slick holding a glass of something alcoholic in his only hand, his hat obscuring the view of his head down against the table. The other three traitors were talking quietly over him. He raised his head slightly to, from the looks of things, curse incoherently at Hearts Boxcars. She needed no greater cue than that, and teleported directly in front of their table.

“Hello, boys,” she told them, and she was proud of how her voice didn’t waver in the slightest. “Might I borrow Spades for a moment?” Her headache was fading already.

Diamonds Droog narrowed his eyes at her, and Hearts Boxcars was getting out of his chair, apparently to have more room to deck her if he needed to. Clubs Deuce tilted his head at her the same way he would back when he was the Droll. On any other day it would have been amusing but today the nostalgia cut like one of Spades’ knives until it physically hurt. He said in that annoying little sing-song voice, “Um, what exactly do you need to -”

Deuce was cut off by Spades Slick. He raised his head and looked up at her, his eyes a little unfocused, before saying “Well ’s the first time you’ve fuckin’ _asked_ me for somethin’. S’okay. S’okay, right guys?”

Diamonds Droog pursed his lips and glared at Slick. It took Snowman a few seconds to figure out he was addressing her and not the shorter Dersite. “You have no right to Spades Slick, especially not when he’s this drunk. I can’t stop him from going after you later, but there’s no way in hell you’re taking him now.”

Spades was trying unsuccessfully to get up. “No guys, no, s’okay. Snowy’ll take good care of me, right, Snow?” Snowman amusedly knelt down to help him up, ignoring the way the other three Crew members edged toward them uneasily. Slick went on: “Ye’ll just take me down to th’ hideout, ri’ Snow?”

“Oh, I’ll take you down, alright,” she muttered, barely loud enough for Slick to hear. He shuddered slowly in her grip, then flashed a sharklike grin at his comrades, though the effect was slightly diminished by the way his body was having trouble supporting itself.

“You see?” she asked smugly. “He’s coming of his own free will. He’ll be yours again tomorrow, and in no worse shape than he is now.”

The other traitors looked at each other pleadingly, like they were all hoping someone else would say something. Finally, Boxcars stood up and announced, “I think all five of us should head back to the hideout.”

Snowman smirked and helped Slick to the door, deliberately getting ahead of the other three Dersites. She almost laughed aloud at the Eclipse’s other patrons. Most of them were pointedly looking away unless they thought she wasn’t looking. The ones who thought she couldn’t see them were gawking at the scene before them. She had no idea how much the rabble knew about her relationship with Slick and the Crew, nor did she particularly care, but she was curious to know what they thought of this scene.

The second they were out the door, Snowman reasoned she had maybe eight seconds before the other three could see them again. So she picked Slick up, cradling him in her arms, and took off, sprinting into a small street behind the Eclipse. There was no way in hell she and Slick could have each other to their satisfaction with the knowledge that Diamonds Droog was sitting in the next room.

“Where…where we going?” Slick asked fuzzily.

“Felt safehouse.” She was taking a twisty, confusing through these alleys, counting the seconds before the Crew realized what she had done. Not that they weren’t expecting it.

“Knew ye had some o’ those ‘round here.”

“Of course.”

The sound of shouting floated over the rooftops to them. They knew she had left. No big deal. They were almost there, and the door couldn’t be unlocked from the outside. The apartment they arrived at, number 108 Ebon Avenue, looked no different than the others on the street aside from the lack of keyhole.

“We’re here,” she told him, before dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. She teleported to the other side of the door, unlocked it, and opened it for Slick, who was picking himself up without much grace.

The shouts were getting louder. How much time did they have? “Get in,” she told him. As he struggled to his feet and lurched through the door, she grabbed him by the front of his coat and threw him bodily onto the green carpet behind her. She slammed and locked the door before allowing herself to breathe a sigh of relief.

This safehouse was one of five in Midnight City that had no keyhole. Not even all of the Felt could get in unaided. She could teleport in, of course, and they always kept a candle lit for Matchsticks to make a quick getaway here. Sawbuck occasionally popped through here as well, though his power was so unpredictable they tried to use it sparingly. Snowman supposed Doc Scratch could also come here if he wanted to, but he almost never left the green moon’s version of Felt Manor. And as far as she knew, none of the Felt had ever even seen English, despite the fact that they were all supposedly working for him.

She turned back toward the room, grinning like a lunatic at Slick, who was using a chair to stand up, before her eyes narrowed as they settled on Matchsticks standing frozen like an antlerbeast in headlights in the doorway to the bedroom.

“Out,” she ordered him.

“Does the Doctor know you’re out?” Matchsticks asked cautiously.

“I said _out_. The Doctor doesn’t keep me on a leash like he does _some people_.” She pulled her cigarette lighter from her pocket, feeling the familiar heft settle in her hand. “Now, for the last time, get out.”

Matchsticks stood there for another few seconds arguing with himself, but went to touch the candle and vanish just as Snowman threw the lance at him. The lance buried itself in the doorframe where he had been standing a few moments ago.

“I didn’ know ya missed me so much, Snowy,” Slick drawled, still slurring as he managed to pull himself to a sitting position on the chair.

Snowman pinched out the candle flame, ensuring their privacy, then walked into the bedroom.

“You,” she told him, drawing her whip as she walked, “are an insufferable little prick.”

She threw the whip so that it coiled around Slick’s wrist, then _tugged_ so that he was pulled into the bedroom. He landed without much grace on the bed. Throwing her whip aside, Snowman climbed on top of him.

“Nofair,” Slick whined. As some kind of retaliation, he batted her hat off her head so it landed on the floor.

“It’s your own fault you’re intoxicated.” She ripped the hat from his head as roughly as she could without actually damaging it, then tossed it on top of her own.

“It’s yer own fault yer a bitch.”

 _Oh my fucking god_ is what Snowman wanted to say, but she found that her lips had involuntarily mashed themselves against Slick’s at some point in the last few seconds. She thrust her tongue into his mouth only because she knew he wouldn’t dare bite her then, and then her hands got to work removing all the cloth barriers between them.

Slick was fumbling in a pocket for a knife before the pocket became inaccessible. Upon finding one, he started running it down her back. Slowly, and almost gently, it pushed its way down her back, not doing any more damage than a single claw was capable of. Snowman found herself arching back into it, lips popping free of Slick’s with a soft “shpop”.

“Snow, I missed you” he muttered softly, and it would have sounded tender if she hadn’t been looking straight into his eye at the time. Slick’s voice may have been soft, but his eye was looking at her like Slick wanted to slowly tear her carapace off with nothing but his claws and teeth.

Snowman shuddered as some strange cross of pleasure and abhorrence washed through her. The knife on her back drew a small zig-zag pattern as she shivered, and then she leaned down so that her mouth was next to Slick’s right ear. Her hands had finally finished their task of removing clothing, so they went up to Slick’s face, encasing it in a clawed prison. As her thumb brushed over his mouth, he bit down, hard, and dark blue blood from the wound pooled in and around his mouth. Slick’s entire body went slack. His eyes closed and he moaned at the taste that flooded through him, like he had just taken a dose of the best drug the universe had to offer.

“Me too,” she whispered, and it was his turn to tremble in her grip.


	6. If a player has no cards in the suit led, a card of any other suit may be discarded.

Snowman awoke to the sound of wood splintering. Slick was standing on the opposite side of the room abusing something with a knife. He was wearing nothing but the tatters of his shirt, which had somehow escaped last night’s clothing exodus.

“Spades?” she asked sleepily, then choked back a laugh as she realized the sheet on top of her had been knifed to the mattress at several points around her body.

“You fuckers take every goddamn excuse to have a clock. I’ve gone through five already and the ticking _won’t fucking stop_.” He held out the remains of a head-sized pendulum clock.

She looked up at him and laughed aloud at the entire situation. To many, it would seem like she was laughing at Slick maliciously, but Slick knew her well enough to know that she honestly thought the entire thing was genuinely funny. He scowled at her.

“And you have bought every can of green paint in the city. That’ll have to be the next heist – steal all the green paint so the Felt can’t make another fucking safehouse. They’ll never go anywhere that isn’t this stupid color.”

Snowman’s laughter began to subside, a few tears leaking down her face. “Well, at least we don’t have an unhealthy obsession with playing cards.” She eyed the small stack of cards sticking out of a jacket that had been discarded.

“It’s a better obsession than fucking _pool_.”

She giggled a bit, which caused a stare from Slick, and then her thoughts drifted back to last night.

“You know, the entire city probably thinks I’ve murdered you by now,” she chortled, and Spades Slick let slip a bark of laughter before his scowl was back.

“Yeah, Boxcars and Droog are going to kill me for this one.”

“Oh? And what of the Droll?”

Slick flashed her a look as if to say _watch it_ , but he answered her anyway: “Deuce’ll just ask me if you treated me alright. Which is fuckin’ stupid if you ask me.” He dropped the clock and gestured to himself, indicating the messily scabbing cuts on his chest and face.

Snowman laughed, a pure sound drastically different from her usual wicked chuckle. Then she phased out of her bedsheet prison and returned standing a foot or so from the bed. She reached down for her clothes, inspecting them for rips and smoothing out wrinkles before putting them on.

“Why didn’t you just teleport in?” Slick asked suddenly, startling her. She threw his pants at him, laughing as he fumbled the catch and they slapped him in the face.

“What do you mean?”

“Last night. It’s sort of fuzzy but I know you dumped me outside before you came in and opened the door. Why didn’t you just take me straight from the Eclipse? Now I know where we are and I can come and torch this place later.” Slick sounded sort of hurt, almost offended.

It was sort of cute actually. To Slick, by showing him the location of the apartment, she was insulting his ability to figure out where it was on his own, like giving him a handicap in a game.

She sighed. “It’s a stupid reason.”

“Tell me anyway,” he growled.

“I can’t take other things with me.”

“And, what, your clothes are part of you?”

She tossed him his suit jacket, which he caught and put on with more grace than the pants. She then spun his hat toward him like it was a disc, which he caught inches before it hit him in the face.

“These are special – they required a great deal of engineering to grant them the ability to come with me. Scratch could explain it in detail, if you cared to listen for a few weeks straight.”

Slick’s looked like he wasn’t convinced, but he stuffed his hat on and went back into the other room. Snowman put on her own hat, coiled her whip and attached it to her belt, then went to collect the knives from the mattress. There were eleven just in the mattress, and several more shoved into clocks in a pile in the corner. Holy shit, how many of them did he carry?

“You forgot something,” she told him, then flung a knife handle-first at the back of his head. He ducked without even looking back, letting the knife clunk against the opposite wall. As he picked it up, she dropped the rest of them in the center of the room, and pulled her cigarette holder out of the wall.

“I look forward to seeing you again,” she told him, preparing to transport herself to Midnight City’s Felt Manor. Before she could, she was spun around by Slick, who was suddenly right behind her. He kissed her with venom, teeth gnashing away at her upper lip. His tongue snaked its way into her mouth, and she bit it just barely enough to draw blood. They both hummed with pleasure despite their aching jaws and just let the moment drag on. One more second, and then another, and another.

Slick then turned on his heel and stalked out the door, pausing only to slam it behind him.


	7. Hearts may not be led until a heart or the Queen of Spades has been played.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written a long long time ago before we knew more about things. So some of it is a little out of date, canon-wise. Too bad!

Snowman transported back to Felt Manor feeling considerably more cheerful than she had for the past week. And, with her thoughts wandering in the direction of Spades Slick, she found herself wondering how he had been exiled in the first place. She had originally thought that he had been shipped down with the rest of Derse when the trolls had officially defeated the Black King on the battlefield. But, now that she was thinking about it, the (admittedly few) exiles she had talked to about Midnight City said that the City had already been formed by the time they were exiled.

This implied that the Archagent had been exiled at a different time (or at least on a different ship) than the rest of Derse. Due to the nonlinear nature of time between the Medium and this planet, it was impossible to tell for sure whether he had been exiled earlier or later from Skaia’s point of view. But barring some strange cataclysmic event after the fall of the King (unlikely) he had probably been exiled before Prospit’s – _ugh_ – victory.

But why would he have been exiled? After her exile, Derse would have looked to him to rule the planet and moon, and might even go so far as to entrust him with her ring. The Dersites wouldn’t have exiled the Archagent.

But then, he had cut a deal with Prospit’s allies, hadn’t he? He had mocked her about it incessantly, that he had associated with the enemy just for her. At least he hadn’t allied with Prospit itself, but rather with its allies. In any case, Prospit would have no purpose in exiling him, especially after he took the Black Queen off of the board.

There was only one other possibility. Someone else had convinced the players to exile him, despite how useful he had been to them.

A wide and evil grin spread across her face. It was her. She would exile Jack Noir.

She was preparing to transport out when she heard a low male voice behind her. Crowbar. “Snowman.”

She turned around, not quite sure what to expect. Another heist proposal, perhaps? “What is it? I’m busy.”

“Quite often, lately, it seems. Listen, are we good to go again?” His voice didn’t waver at all, but he was tapping his crowbar against his leg. Snowman had been around him long enough to recognize when he was nervous. The Felt (excluding herself) were neither Prospitian nor Dersite, but somehow employed by Doc Scratch, or perhaps Lord English. There were multiple instances of them. It was all for the better anyway, since the Midnight Crew had managed to kill all of them on their raid of the Manor. And while their personalities and abilities were conserved between iterations, it was not a form of resurrection. More like alternate versions of themselves, similar to Time or Heart players’. Still, Snowman tried to avoid killing her allies unless absolutely necessary.

Snowman caught his meaning immediately. “Yes. No more tiptoeing around the Midnight Crew. In fact, make sure the next plan deliberately steps on their toes.”

Crowbar offered a smile. “Ah, that’s good. It’s been a while. How was it with Slick?”

Snowman smiled sharply in reminiscence. “Excellent.”

Crowbar’s foot tapped. “Well, good to hear. I’ll let you know when we have a heist plan.”

“Thank you, Crowbar.” And with that, she teleported herself to a command terminal.

The terminal was turned off, but Snowman had the activation key with her. Each session had only one, and she had made sure to steal the key from Prospit when exile had become a possibility. She pressed the spirograph key into the terminal, and the input screen flickered to life before her.

Now she was faced with the problem of who to contact. She had twelve options. Well, there was no reason she would need to finish the job now. Clearly she would manage to exile him eventually, due to the nature of time loops. Today she would just scope out the players.

Her fingers brushed over the terminal’s controls, familiarizing herself with them. She had trained herself in the basic commands when it became clear that she would be exiled. Perhaps she would just watch their actions for a while, before deciding who to contact. Best to start at the beginning.

> => SWITCH 1

The Knight of Blood, a Prospit dreamer, appeared on a screen that was dominated by the red blood sea of the Land of Pulse and Haze. The Knight was angrily typing into a computer for a few seconds, and then he turned around and yelled something behind him.

Only then did the camera pan to reveal Jack Noir, the Archagent of Derse.

Jack Noir.

Not Spades Slick.

Jack Noir, Archagent of Derse.

She froze, and was suddenly acutely aware of her heart beating in her chest. Seeing him as he was then – the Dersite uniform, no hat, both eyes and arms – stunned her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. She was overcome with a sudden longing, to the point where she had to lean against the terminal or risk falling over. She stared at Jack, her fingers brushing over the screen softly, and she found herself making soft keening sounds.

_I miss Derse. I miss Jack Noir._

Overwhelmed by emotion, she flung herself away from the terminal, managing to make it all the way out of the room before she collapsed against the wall, tears streaming down her face. Her throat was making these awful sounds, and she was suddenly appalled at herself. She had gotten over her exile sweeps ago. Why was she suddenly breaking down? She could handle it!

“Hello?”

_Who’s there?!_

A quiet voice ripped Snowman’s grief from her and left her with an all-consuming feeling of terror. Who was here? Who could have known she was here? She couldn’t see anyone, _where was it coming from?!_

“Show yourself!” Snowman yelled wildly, fear making her voice jump two octaves. Attempting to stifle her heavy breathing, she managed to regain a grip on herself.

_Breathe._

_Whoever is here is no threat._

She was Snowman. She could easily escape from any situation she found herself in, and all who knew her would not kill her. All who knew her would be terrified of her, for they knew that if they lost her favor, she had any number of ways at her disposal to make their lives hell or, should that not suffice, end them.

The voice spoke again: “Someone is here? Someone is here! Oh, thank Skaia –” a tall, white figure lurched into the room, covered in dirty rags. Snowman’s heart jumped into her throat when she saw who it was.

There was no way.

Prospit had won.

Their leader could not be exiled.

When the figure saw Snowman, it froze. The White Queen looked about as haggard as an exile could look, and her expression had changed from relief to despair in the span of about two seconds.

Snowman just stared. “What. The fuck.”

The White Queen flinched a bit at the last word (stupid Prospitian sensitivities) then hung her head. “I had hoped that someone was here to rescue me, but I see that fortune has other things in store.” She knelt down, by all appearances a broken carapacian. “I only ask that you make this quick.”

_What?_

_I…_

_What?!_

Snowman was trying to process what was going on here, but she just couldn’t do it. She had been flung from happiness to despair to terror to shock within such a short time that she it was all she could do to stand against the wall and breathe. In. And out. And again.

Then, finally, she could speak. Her first words dealt with the impossibility of the scene before her: “Why are you here?” And, now that she had spoken, an avalanche of words began to spew forth: “You _won_ , what are you doing exiled on this shithole planet? How long has it been –” she clamped a hand over her own mouth before these words could get any further.

The White Queen looked up, seemingly surprised that Snowman hadn’t hacked her head off without question. Her voice, when she answered, was weak and tired. “I…I’ve been here for more than a sweep, subjectively. Hours after our victory, Skaia showed us visions of Prospit dying in a ball of green fire, followed soon by most of the Medium. I tried to stay and help them, but my subjects insisted that I be sent here, to be _safe_.” Tears were welling in the Queen’s eyes. “Since I’ve come here, I’ve spent the time trying to stay out of the sun. The terminal won’t respond to commands, and I’ve been living off of the supplies stored here.”

Snowman felt a completely unexpected wave of pity. Snowman had learned that exile was a possibility a week before she had been shipped through the Veil. She had spent that week preparing as well as she could. These preparations included the securing the activation key, birthing Alternia’s First Guardian, and, of course, attempting to prevent her exile at all costs.

The White Queen, assured of her victory, had been stuffed on a ship within hours of winning. And quickly, since no one could tell whether the Skaian cloud visions would happen a sweep from now or an hour from now.

But then, why did she care? This was the _White Queen_ , the carapacian who had committed all her resources to defeating Derse. The most reviled carapacian to the Dersites. Snowman should, by her right, either kill her now, or leave the sun to do so slowly. They were halfway across the planet from Midnight City – there was no hope she could make it there.

Snowman pulled her cigarette lighter out of her pocket and watched the White Queen’s eyes widen in terror at the sight of the lance. She readied herself to do the killing blow. The White Queen hung her head, awaiting her fate.

She just needed to attack. Just one blow.

Now.

…

Now.

…

She couldn’t do it.

With a frustrated yell, she put the lance back in her pocket. “God damn it! I just can’t do it! Fuck! What the hell happened to me?! Why can’t I kill you?”

The Queen looked up at her. “How long have you been here?” she asked quietly.

“A hundred and two sweeps. But we’re not alone here. On the other side of the planet, there’s an entire city. A lot of Prospit, almost all of Derse, and the Midnight Crew.”

“The Midnight Crew?”

“Spades – Jack Noir, the Dignitary, the Brute, and the Droll.”

“Ah. Your…overagents?”

“Yes, but they go by different names now.”

“I…I think maybe you miss the old days.”

“Oh, maybe!” Snowman cried bitterly. “I miss it more than you can imagine. But I have Spades, and I have my gang, and I’ve been assured of Derse’s eventual victory, no matter how long it masquerades as defeat. And so I move on.”

The White Queen nodded. “Still, you wish you could go back.”

“I knew there was a possibility of exile, and I prepared for it,” she snapped. Then, more softly, “but you’re right.” Snowman sighed and tried to shake off the pathetic feeling the confession brought on.

The White Queen, weirdly, sat back comfortably and smiled. “Well I for one appreciate the nostalgia.”

Snowman stared. “You’re _happy_ to see me.”

The White Queen looked at her oddly, like she hadn’t heard that there was a question.

Snowman was still staring incredulously. “That was a question, and then a period.”

The banished Queen averted her eyes. “I…Yes, I suppose I am happy to see you. I’d be happy to see anyone.”

“You’re _happy_ to see me? You should know that I secured your defeat twice over.”

The Queen looked at her, unimpressed. “We won.”

Snowman smirked. “Only for a while. An omniscient source informs me that not only will the universe they spawn be faulty, but that many sweeps from now, I will personally ensure this universe’s destruction.”

The White Queen shook her head. “Regardless of what you did, I’m still happy to see you.”

“Well I think you’re insane.”

The Queen shifted nervously. “If it’s not too much to ask, if you’re not here to kill me, will you…stay…for a little while?”

 _Say no. Then leave her to rot._ “Well, I had planned to stay here for some time anyway, to manipulate the trolls into exiling my Archagent.” _Stupid. Kill her._

The faintest smile broke out on the Prospitian’s face. “I’m glad.”


	8. The highest card of the suit led wins a trick.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Snowman talks to some trolls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someday I'll figure out how to use the fancy queen font here on AO3. The chat format looks a lot nicer in MS Word than it does here. Oh welllll.

The White Queen had nodded off a few minutes ago, apparently tired from the heat of the sun. Snowman decided to go down and view the players again. She carefully averted her eyes from the first screen as she typed. She didn’t need another meltdown now, much as she was sure she could handle it. In any case, contacting the Knight was out of the question.

> => SWITCH 2

Here was the Seer of Mind, another Prospit dreamer. Not much was known about her, but her spies had informed her that she was blind – even her dreamself. She had also prototyped a dragon, which was somewhat notable in that she must have had access to one. But something about her caught Snowman’s eye. It was the Seer’s grin. That grin was one that Snowman knew well, since she and Spades wore it quite often. That was the grin of someone who enjoyed watching her friends and enemies alike squirm. Perhaps this one could be made use of.

> => SWITCH 3

Snowman knew a little bit about the Bard of Rage, if only because he had managed to go through the quests on his planet without killing a single imp. He and the imps apparently just got along. This was frustrating to the Dersites since it meant they had to send actual agents to go and try to stop him. What they reported was that the Bard was simply too “chill” to do anything. He mostly just sat around eating some kind of disgusting drug.

On the other hand, a Dersite pawn she had met in the City told her that he was present for the final battle between Prospit and the Black King. And that apparently, on the battlefield, the Bard had snapped somehow, and dealt the King a massive blow that managed to take out several bishops and a rook as well. Snowman knew that the Bard had great potential. But, being a Bard, that potential was unstable, and if Snowman tried to tap into it, she might cause more harm than benefit. Best to leave him to his drugs.

> => SWITCH 4

The Page of Breath was the other Prospit dreamer that had managed to weasel out of killing imps on his planet, this time through psychic manipulation. Snowman had a grudging respect for this. But after watching the Page with the Thief of Light in the Land of Maps and Treasure, she lost all of that respect very quickly. He was a complete pushover. He wouldn’t help her cause. But the Thief…

> => SWITCH 5

Now, the Thief of Light, here was a troll she could use! She had a psychic power that allowed her to manipulate not animals, but _other trolls_ , and maybe even carapacians. And what a class! Thief of Light was an extremely powerful class, but it was the manner of that power that struck Snowman as particularly noteworthy. The Thief made herself powerful _by diminishing those around her_. And, though the other players seemed to dislike her, she still commanded their grudging respect. How could someone so diabolical be a Prospit dreamer? Such a shame. She was currently messaging the Seer of Mind on a computer, and she seemed annoyed at what she saw.

Ah, now this was interesting. She remembered an incident almost a sweep before the game start. An agent had been sent to Prospit to monitor the slumbering dreamselves. She reported back that the Seer of Mind had awoken, and had looked upon Skaia. But the Seer didn’t see the stupid clouds that everyone else blabbered about, she was blinded by the brightness surrounding the battlefield. More significantly, it seemed that the Thief had mentally manipulated her into doing so. A sweep later, the Seer’s dreamself slapped the Thief’s, almost in challenge.

It was a petty rivalry, nothing like what she and Spades had, but perhaps it could be manipulated to her advantage. These two could be pitted against each other with Jack Noir as a bargaining chip.

There were still seven more viewports to investigate before she began, though.

> => SWITCH 6

The Sylph of Space. It seemed that Space was drawn to Prospit, just as Time was drawn to Derse. Chances were slim that Snowman would be able to distract her from her loathsome task, and Snowman had no wish to look upon it in any case.

> => SWITCH 7

Finally, a Derse dreamer. The Heir of Void. He could also likely be used to her advantage, if only because his actions would remain hidden from the view of anyone who cared to look. She also resolved to remember this if it ever became necessary to hide something from the Doctor.

> => SWITCH 8

The Maid of Time’s dreamself, Snowman remembered, had perished a sweep before she even entered the Medium. They knew that this meant that her other self had perished before entering the Medium. They gave her a proper funeral through the streets of Derse (“The Maid is dead. Our Time is coming.”), laid her to rest on the Quest Bed in Derse’s core, and torn down her tower. Snowman had assumed she wouldn’t be entering the Medium. The entire kingdom was surprised when their agents reported that there was a robot Time player.

Of course, the Maid had also prototyped a…that hideous creature that represented the universe. After a brief glance at the Maid’s robotic form flying around the Land of Quartz and Melody, Snowman decided to test out the Maid’s usefulness once she had checked on the other players.

> => SWITCH 9

Derse’s agents had reported that the Rogue of Heart was nauseatingly cheerful, but incredibly vicious when it came down to fighting their imps. Perhaps she could be manipulated into helping exile the Archagent. It seemed that she cared a good deal for the Knight – perhaps she could drive a wedge between him and Noir.

> => SWITCH 10

She had spent several hours back on Derse puzzling over the Prince of Hope. He had ignored the monsters of the Land of Wrath and Angels, choosing instead to hunt down his consorts. In the end, she had decided that he was just stupid. Unfortunately, this made him somewhat immune to manipulation as he ignored everything but his task of exterminating the beings that were trying to aid him. She wouldn’t use him unless – ha ha – all hope was lost.

> => SWITCH 11

The Witch of Life was notable primarily because she had prototyped what seemed to be one of the gods of the Furthest Ring. Perhaps she was accustomed to hearing voices. That would either hinder Snowman or aid her. She wasn’t sure which.

> => SWITCH 12

Finally, she turned on the last screen to see the Mage of Doom. She had been startled when her agents reported that he had a second dreamself on Prospit. She had even sent the Archagent out to confirm the finding. But it seemed that the report was valid. Once the game had started, it was reported that he was a fairly strong psionic. But that was really all that was special about him. He didn’t seem to be well-respected enough within the group for Snowman to make great use of him.

After a moment’s deliberation, she decided to test the waters with the Maid first, to get that out of the way, then figure out how to approach the Seer and the Thief.

> => SWITCH 8

Unsure of how to begin, she figured she’d just see how the Maid reacted to hearing voices.

> Maid.

The Maid froze. Her robotic form was floating over a lake in the Land of Quartz and Melody, apparently partially through a quest. She gestured with her hand toward the lake. Snowman was unsure of the purpose of this until water started floating up into the air in thin streams, arranging itself into letters. How the Maid knew that Snowman would need a visual response, she had no idea.

wh0 are y0u

Well now, that was unexpected. Perhaps the Maid was one of the many psychically talented players who heard voices on a fairly regular basis.

> I am an exile.

More water from the stream.

y0u’re l0uder than the 0ther 0ne

The other one? Who else had been talking to the players? She’d have to ask the Doctor later. But for now…

> My purpose is greater than the others’.

i d0n’t have time f0r this

> You are a Time player. You have time for anything.

i have t0 st0p CG fr0m messing up again

Snowman saw an alternate version of the Maid emerge from thin air, clutching a book that Snowman recognized well to her chest. That book would be used in the creation of Doc Scratch. The alternate Maid nodded to the original and then flew off toward her First Gate.

Snowman realized what the Maid of Time was up to.

> You are preserving the Alpha Timeline. 

yes n0w please leave

i d0n’t need help from y0u

It occurred to Snowman that if the Maid were using her alternate selves to preserve the Alpha Timeline, she wouldn’t need Snowman to tell her what to do in regard to Jack Noir. Perhaps her time would be better spent with other players.

> Very well.

Perhaps she would have better luck with the Rogue of Heart. She would be well-motivated by the welfare of the Knight of Blood.

> => SWITCH 9

The Rogue of Heart was in the process of tearing off the heads of the nearest ogres. The Heir of Void was with her, punching the beasts with such force that they fell to only one or two blows. There were monsters all around, and Snowman figured she wouldn’t have much luck talking to her at the moment. She would try again later, when the terminal showed her at a less busy time.

> => SWITCH 5

This time, when Snowman set the viewport to view the Thief, she was sitting alone in her hive, halfheartedly typing something. Snowman tried to reconcile this with the previous picture she had gotten of her, but then remembered that time worked strangely between the Medium and this planet. She would simply have to trust the terminal to display the time she needed.

> Thief.

The Thief perked up, her head darting from side to side as she looked for her intruder. She then smiled widely, sat down at her desk, and typed a message in a blank window.

> Who 8re you?

The same approach ought to work here.

> I am an exile.

> Wh8t’s th8?

> We are meant to repopulate your planet.

> You’re on LOMAT????????

> Alternia.

> Oh. So wh8t good 8re you to me then?

Snowman remembered that potential rivalry between the Seer and the Thief.

> I can help you outshine the Seer. I can make her hate you for it.

The Thief’s smile vanished, replaced by a nervous, furtive glance around the room, as if ensuring their privacy.

> Th8t ship s8iled a long t8me ago. She just sort of ignores me now. 8esides, d8dn’t you hear? I’m a team pl8yer now. No p8tty riv8lries.

> Why do you w8nt to h8lp me, 8nyw8ys?

> I know something about petty rivalries.

> Ahahahahahahaha, oh my god, the exiles have a 8lackshipper!

Snowman puzzled over the term for a minute. Then she remembered something she had read in her Troll Etiquette book. Trolls had this idiotic notion of “quadrants” and they felt like they needed to map all their romantic endeavors onto this grid. She remembered some nauseating conversations with Spades in which he talked about his relationship with her to the Knight. The Knight had apparently kept telling the Archagent that the fact that his sign was a spade was very appropriate. Snowman didn’t see any need to shove her relationship with Spades Slick into a box. What did they call it? A kismesis? Whatever. And anyway, she had never seen another relationship even modestly compare to what they had in the way of bloodlust, so it’s not like she had a lot of comparison.

In any case, Snowman supposed she should play this to her advantage.

> Is that something you wish to pursue with the Seer?

> I j8st w8sh I could find soooooooomeone who h8s me the w8y I h8 m8st 8f th8m!

At this, Snowman had to collapse in a fit of laughter on the floor. She was so desperate. It was truly funny. You couldn’t just try to hate everybody and hope one of them would hate you back. It just sort of grew naturally over time, and really with only one person. Not that she knew anything about “8lackshipping”.

The Thief looked frantically over her shoulder, then hurriedly typed one more message.

> Sh8! S8meone’s c8ming! I’ll t8ll you a8out it l8r, dark text l8y!

She then wiped the entire message board from the screen. Moments later, the Thief’s server player, the Sylph of Space, was at the door. Snowman would get no further now. Time to contact the Seer.

> => SWITCH 2

The Seer was walking on a path through the Land of Thought and Flow, apparently heading toward a structure off in the distance.

> Seer.

The Seer’s mouth widened in surprise, and then she used a coin to pull something from her fetch modus. A box of chalk fell to the ground. Snowman still had no idea how these players knew she needed a visual response, but she wasn’t about to question her luck. The Seer began drawing letters on the wall next to her.

>:O

D4RK T3XT L4DY

YOUR VO1C3 SM3LLS F4NT4ST1C!!!

Snowman blinked. Spies had reported that the Seer had developed a remarkable new sense since blinded, but this…

> I am flattered. What are you doing?

QU3STS 4ND STUFF

1 WOULD G3T SOM3TH1NG B3TT3R TO DO FROM K4RK4T BUT H3’S B31NG SORT OF S1LLY R1GHT NOW

> How so? 

H3’S SP3ND1NG 4LL TH1S T1M3 W1TH TH1S SL1MY GUY FROM D3RS3.

Ah, now here was something she could use! But she had to guide her to it slowly, or it would seem too suspicious.

> You don’t trust the Archagent? 

W3LL H3 H4SN’T DON3 ANYTH1NG TOO SUSP1C1OUS Y3T, BUT 1 DON’T TRUST HIM

H3 SM3LLS V3RY D4RK TO M3

> What about me? 

YOU SM3LL MUCH NIC3R

YOUR BL4CK SM3LLS L1K3 TH3 SKY ON 4 R34LLY D4RK N1GHT, 4ND YOU H4V3 4 H1NT OF L1M3 TH4T’S V3RY 4TTR4CT1V3

J4CK NO1R 1S V3RY SL1MY, L1K3 4N O1L SL1CK

AND TH3R3’S TH1S CLOY1NG L1COR1C3 SC3NT TOO

> And you don’t trust him for this reason. 

W3LL, 1 M34N, H1S MOT1V3S 4R3 PR3TTY SH4DY

TH3 4RCH4G3NT FROM D3RS3 SUDD3NLY W4NTS TO H3LP US W1N TH3 G4M3?

SUR3

> All he cares about is exiling the Black Queen. He will betray you. 

W3LL K4RK4T S33MS TO L1K3 H1M

4ND H3 DO3S H4V3 4 GOOD PL4N TO 3XIL3 TH3 QU33N

W3’LL H4V3 TO G3T H3R OUT OF TH3 W4Y 3V3NTU4LLY

> Make sure you have a plan in place for his betrayal. 

Y34H

SO, WHO 4R3 YOU 4NYW4Y?

> I am merely an exile. 

OH

DO W3 M4N4G3 TO G3T TH3 QU33N?

Snowman’s breath caught.

> I do not know, I was one of the first. 

M3H, W3 SHOULD PROB4BLY 4VO1D N33DL3SS SPO1L3RS 4NYW4Y

> We will speak again. 

BY3, D4RK T3XT L4DY!

“What are you doing?” a voice drifted over to Snowman from the other room.

“I’m convincing the players to exile Jack Noir.”

“What?” The sleepy voice was followed into the room by the White Queen herself. “Why?”

Snowman pulled the key out of the terminal, blacking out all the screens, and turned to face the Queen.

“Spades Slick. The Archagent. Jack Noir. I want him exiled. I want him off Derse. I want him here.”


	9. The winner of the trick keeps all cards won in a single stack in front of himself or herself, face down.

Snowman ended up staying through the night and into the morning. She knew that it would bother her later, that she didn’t just snap the White Queen’s neck. Or leave her to rot in this terminal. Or run her lance through her heart. But every time she tried, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She instead found herself trying to work out how she could sneak her into the Manor.

The obvious move would be to ask the Doctor for help. Hiking back to Midnight City on foot would take weeks, and the White Queen clearly was too weakened for harsh travel in any case. Doc Scratch could transport the lot of them back to Felt Manor, but Snowman felt ridiculously vulnerable asking the Doctor about something like that.

Which, she realized, was incredibly silly, given that he was omniscient and already knew about Snowman’s actions regarding the White Queen. Snowman silently resolved to watch the Heir of Void on the terminal next time. Scratch was insufferable enough without witnessing Snowman’s embarrassing emotional moment.

So Snowman got up and removed the activation key from the terminal. The White Queen stirred in the chamber behind her. The tired voice drifted over to Snowman from through the door: “Where are you going now?”

“I’m going to see if this planet’s First Guardian will teleport us back to the City.”

The White Queen’s expression was carefully blank. “Why?”

Snowman felt a surge of annoyance. She turned to the White Queen and scowled. “Because you can’t hike back on your own.”

The White Queen pursed her lips, but didn’t argue. Instead, she just said, “Thank you, Black Queen.”

Snowman flinched. “I’m not the Black Queen anymore.”

The Prospitian nodded. “More of a…Banished Quasiroyal?”

Snowman tried it on for size, then discarded it. “No, it’s Snowman now. What about you?”

The Queen looked away in shame. “I’m a Weary Querent. A Weakened Quarrion.”

Snowman appraised her for a moment. “A Windswept Questant.”

WQ’s eyes unfocused for a second as she considered it. “I like it.”

“I’ll be back,” Snowman assured her, and then she was in Felt Manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure I wrote more of this, but this is all that was in my hard drive for now. I'll try to hunt down more of it sometime this week.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this on and off for a bit. It started as a bit of shameless blood between Snowman and Spades Slick, and then somewhere it grew a plot. More chapters to come.


End file.
